U.S. executives worried about selling earthmovers and airplanes to China, buying oil and gas from Nigeria or assembling cars and televisions along the Mexican border will be looking much closer to home for help on their 1996 wish list. That's because the most outspoken opponents of unfettered U.S. economic expansion are home-grown.

An aide to former Housing Secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr. testified Monday that Pierce often awarded federal housing grants on the basis of friendship and political favoritism. The testimony of DuBois L.

President Clinton on Monday unveiled the first balanced-budget proposal in 30 years, sending Congress a $1.7-trillion federal spending plan that projects a decade's worth of surpluses. Declaring an end to "an era of exploding deficits," Clinton forecast a $9.5-billion budget surplus for fiscal 1999, which begins Oct. 1, and steadily growing surpluses that would add up to $1.1 trillion 10 years from now.

October 8, 2001 | JAMES S. GRANELLI and SCOTT MARTELLE, TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Orange County billionaire George L. Argyros, whose nomination as ambassador to Spain has been held up since spring, appears closer to getting his ticket to Madrid. Congressional sources say Argyros' path was cleared when state prosecutors settled a consumer fraud investigation into one of his companies.

In a rare concession of defeat on a sensitive diplomatic issue, President Clinton asked the U.S. Senate on Friday to postpone a vote on a global treaty banning nuclear tests and promised he would not use the issue against Republicans in the 2000 election. "I have asked them to put it off because we don't have the votes," Clinton said, referring to next week's scheduled floor vote on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

President Bush's roster of nominees for key environmental policy jobs is brimming with lawyers and lobbyists for the very industries these officials will oversee in their government posts. Not surprisingly, Bush's lineup differs greatly from former President Clinton's senior regulatory team, which featured a number of prominent environmentalists. As a result, many of Bush's choices have been greeted warmly by conservative activists but eyed warily by environmental organizations.

The House passed a measure Thursday intended to protect individuals and religious organizations from having to obey state and local laws, such as zoning ordinances, that might interfere with their religious practices.

When Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) late Friday objected to House Republicans describing senators as jurors, he was expressing more than a point of personal pique. Harkin cut to the heart of the battle underway to shape the perceptions of the Senate impeachment proceedings--a battle that could determine both the public's tolerance for the ongoing case and whether the GOP can build any meaningful pressure on Democratic senators to turn against the president.

The National Rifle Assn., its opponents say, is broke, shedding members, losing influence, in full retreat. As evidence of the gun lobby's waning power, opponents cite the NRA's inability to overturn the ban on assault weapons and the organization's decision not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election this year--in essence, acquiescing in the reelection of President Clinton. "The National Rifle Assn.